NEW YORK, NEW YORK, May 1, 2007 – Geoffrey Holland has been named Executive Director of ORBIS International, a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to saving sight worldwide. The announcement was made today by A.L. Ueltschi, chairman of the ORBIS International board of directors.  

Holland has held several management and leadership positions since he first joined ORBIS in 1987. These include a year as director of the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital, six years as director of the ORBIS Hong Kong office, which he established, and a period as director of public affairs, most recently having oversight for US fundraising and public relations.

“Geoff has always been an invaluable member of the ORBIS family," says Ueltschi.  "His ideas and initiatives have advanced ORBIS, its programs and partnerships in so many ways. As the next executive director, his experience, enthusiasm, and outward-looking nature will be a driving force behind the organization’s efforts to combat avoidable blindness on a global scale.”

Holland succeeds the Honorable Oliver Foot, who was active with ORBIS since its founding in 1982 and stepped down as president and executive director on April 24. Foot will remain on the ORBIS International board of directors and serve ORBIS in an advisory capacity. He will also serve as director of international affairs. 

Since 1982, ORBIS volunteers and staff have directly restored the vision and transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in more than 85 countries. At the same time, ORBIS has been building local capacity to provide eye care in those countries by training more than 120,000 eye care professionals aboard the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital, in local hospitals, and through long-term national blindness prevention programs in Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India and Vietnam.

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